Germany, consort of the Queen’s eldest daughter.  Too soon those rumours proved true.  Even when the prince rode in the splendid Jubilee procession, a commanding figure in his dazzling white uniform, the cruel malady had fastened on him that was to slay him in less than a year, proving fatal three months after the death of his aged father had called him to fill the imperial throne.  The nation followed the course of this tragedy with a feverish interest never before excited by the lot of any foreign potentate, and deeply sympathised with, the distress of the Queen and of the bereaved empress.

[Illustration:  Duke of Clarence. From a Photograph by Lafayette, Dublin.]

But the year 1892 held in store a blow yet more cruelly felt.  The English people were still rejoicing with the Queen over the betrothal of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, to his kinswoman Princess May of Teck, when the death of the bridegroom elect in January plunged court and people into mourning.  That the Queen was greatly touched by the universal sympathy with her and hers was proved by the pathetic letter she wrote to the nation, and by the frank reliance on their affection which marked the second letter in which, eighteen months later, she asked them to share her joy in the wedding of the Duke of York, now heir-presumptive, to the bride-elect of his late brother.  This union has been highly popular, and the Queen’s evident delight in the birth of the little Prince Edward of York in June, 1894, touched the hearts of her subjects, who remembered the deep sorrow of 1892.

[Illustration:  Duke of York. From a Photograph by Russell & Sons, Baker Street, W.]

[Illustration:  Duchess of York. From a Photograph by Russell & Sons, Baker Street, W.]

Once more they were called to grieve with her, when the husband of her youngest daughter Beatrice, Prince Henry of Battenberg, who for years had formed part of her immediate circle, died far from home and England, having fallen a victim to fever ere he could distinguish himself, as he had hoped, in our last expedition to Ashanti.  The pathos of such a death was deeply felt when the prince’s remains were brought home and laid to rest, in the presence of his widow and her royal mother, in the very church at Whippingham that he had entered an ardent bridegroom.  Not all gloom, however, has been Her Majesty’s domestic life in these recent years; she has taken joy in the marriages of many of her descendants; and the visits of her grandchildren—­of whom one, Princess Alice of Hesse, daughter of the well-beloved Alice of England, became Czarina of Russia only the other day—­are a source of keen interest to her.

[Illustration:  Princess Henry of Battenberg. From a Photograph by Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight.]

[Illustration:  Prince Henry of Battenberg. From a Photograph by Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight.]